I am interested in the possibility that we are going to be wrong in the same way that history has indicated that mankind always is. It seems as though the history of ideas is the history of being wrong. And to me, that is a kind of continuum. It's a continual path that shows we don't always know something, but we're always shifting to a path that makes us feel more comfortable in the moment, even if that shift is wrong, and a new shift is destined to happen again.
Chuck KlostermanAnd all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was think, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.
Chuck KlostermanNo woman will ever satisfy me. I know that now, and I would never try to deny it. But this is actually okay, because I will never satisfy a woman, either. Should I be writing such thoughts? Perhaps not. Perhaps itโs a bad idea. I can definitely foresee a scenario where that first paragraph could come back to haunt me, especially if I somehow became marginally famous.
Chuck KlostermanThe biggest problem in rock journalism is that often the writers main motivation is to become friends with the band. Theyre not really journalists; theyre people who want to be involved in rock and roll.
Chuck KlostermanAll my friends are rock critics, so we talk about rock criticism a lot. Because of that, in order to be part of the conversation, you have to have an awareness of what the discussion is.
Chuck KlostermanI feel like a lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible.
Chuck Klosterman